DFO 15888/83

1. THE FN IS ANOTHER CASE WHERE WE REALLY DON'T HAVE TO BE SUCH PERFECTIONISTS! If you make the mistakes, that's your fault! Each one of you is supposed to contribute a finished page the way we told you to do it, & if you don't do it, we can't help it! If it's too bad to use, we just won't use it! This is your last warning! We just cannot use anything that doesn't conform & come up to snuff & make it possible for us to shoot those things the easiest possible way!

2. THAT WAS THE WHOLE IDEA OF THE SCREENING, to make it so we didn't have to shoot the photos separate from the text, so we could shoot the page just exactly the way it comes in. I don't go too much for having to take the photos & stick them all on either, I think we're going to have to somehow or another cure that problem. If you stick them on in such a way that you'll be able to fold them between rows of pictures or something & still get it in the envelope‚ we're going to have to insist on that, because we can't have you sending us text & separate pictures & have to glue'm on! The whole idea is for you to send us a prepared finished page, then all we have to do is shoot it!

3. WE'RE DOING WELL TO HAVE THE NEWS MAG AT ALL‚ & YOU CAN BE THANKFUL WE PUB THOSE AT ALL! We don't necessarily owe you that & we certainly don't owe you perfection!—Especially if you don't send it! I thought I'd talk straight to you & confirm it that this is the way we're going to do it, whether anybody likes it or not or whether it's perfect or not! This is the only way we can afford to do it, & that is for you to send in a copy that conforms to our specifications & our standards, & if it doesn't, we can't afford to even send it back to you! I don't know any publisher that sends your stuff back to you, they all say in all their ads & everything: "Sorry‚ we can't return the copy."—Because it's too expensive.

4. SORRY, IF IT DOESN'T CONFORM TO OUR SPECIFICATIONS & OUR STANDARDS‚ THEN WE'LL JUST HAVE TO THROW IT AWAY‚ & IF YOU DON'T SEE IT, THAT'S TOUGH! We can't notify you, either‚ that we've had to throw it away. You know what the standards are & we've repeated them enough times & you've had long enough now to live up to them! And if you get careless & sloppy & lazy & don't do it, then we don't pub it, period! I don't care if the Mag is half the size, it would save money! So let's just forget it!

5. IF IT'S SO FAINTLY TYPED WE CAN HARDLY READ IT, BUT WE THINK THE STORY IS REALLY REALLY GOOD & WE'D LIKE TO USE IT, either we're going to have to get somebody to retype it, or we're going to have to send it back to you to retype‚ which I think we ought to do! Someone will have to judge whether it's really that important or that good, & in that case we can send it back to you & tell you to retype it.

6. AND IF THE PICTURES ARE SO GOOD BUT THEY DON'T LIVE UP TO THE NEEDS OF PRINTED PHOTOGRAPHY, if they don't have enough contrast or there's something wrong with the picture, if it's not important, we'll just throw them away! If it's something really important & we would really like to have those pictures or that story, whatever it is‚ then we will notify you that we would like to use the item, but you're going to have to do better. And on the second time around if you still can't do better, well that's tough, we'll just have to forget it!—We just cannot fiddle around with going to all that trouble & time & painstaking nit-picking & perfectionism: We just have not got time for it, that's all there is to it! We've got too many irons in the fire & too many things to do!

7. WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO WORK ON YOU ORIGINATORS & MAKE YOU BRING YOUR STUFF UP TO SNUFF, OR WE'RE NOT GOING TO USE IT! We're not going to fiddle around & try to patch up the mess you've made! Sorry, from now on, if you don't see it pubbed, it's because you didn't do a good job of it‚ that's all! And we can't afford to notify you or send it back, either one. If it's not good, then we just can't use it. That's it, period!

8. WE'VE NOW FIGURED OUT A FORMAT IN WHICH YOU CAN PUT THE PICTURES IN ROWS WITH A SEPARATION BETWEEN THE ROWS SO YOU CAN FOLD THE PAGE & make it fit at least a business-size envelope, if nothing else. We're telling you exactly how to do it & exactly how to arrange the pictures & exactly how to fold it up, the pictures & all, so we don't have to do a thing when we get that page but just slap it on our copystand, slap a piece of screen on & shoot, that's all!

9. WE JUST CANNOT FOOL AROUND TRYING TO PATCH UP YOUR MESSES, THAT'S ALL THERE IS TO IT! I'm finished with that kind of stuff, it's done with! I told the Nit-Wits off one time about their pub, & it is no more! We salvaged what we could & we did what we could without'm. There were very few of those perfectionists & colour artists & all the rest who wanted to go along with it, & the top dogs on that outfit have vanished! We only kept the ones that wanted to do it my way, which turned out to be the easiest, simplest, cheapest, most economical time-saving way of all, & it worked!

10. WE'VE GOT TO KEEP THIS THING MOVING & KEEP REVOLUTING OR WE'RE GOING TO SLIP BEHIND! We cannot have our photographers spending hours & hours & fiddling around with details like that, we just can't do it! So I want to see that stuff simplified so that anybody can do it & anybody can lay out their own sheet, their own page, if we have to make all the specifications absolutely uniform! If we've got to have either all pictures or just half pictures or quarter pictures or whatever, we're telling you the exact size so you can just fold it right up & have those pictures stuck on & folded up just the way it is & stick it in an envelope. Then all we have to do is unfold it, lay it out, slap on a piece of screen & shoot it!

11. NOW THAT'S THE IDEAL! It may not be the ideal quality, but it's going to have to be the ideal time-saving, money–saving, nerve-saving method in order to trim this business down to where we can handle it. When I read that FN story, "All in a Day's Work", it was fascinating, interesting, but it sure cured me of all that junk they're doing. The FN Staff signed their own death warrant to that kind of a process, that finished it off! Maybe that was their idea, to give me a gentle hint that they're trying to revolute. "All things work together for good." (Rom.8:28) I know I've fussed about the poor quality of some of the pictures sometimes, but if that's the best we can do with what we've got, that will have to be it! We just cannot fiddle around having to go through all those various steps & processes & everything else to try to straighten out the mess that some of you originated.

12. WE ARE JUST GOING TO HAVE TO MAKE THE LAYOUT SO SIMPLE & SO STANDARD & IDENTICAL, IF NECESSARY, & JUST SPECIFIC! This is it, this is the way you've got to do it or we can't use it‚ period! This is the word with the bark on it & that's it! This is the last time! We'll give you one more month & that's all, & we will not even fiddle with the stuff that comes in anymore unless it's according to our specifications. We've just got to simplify the FN work‚ that's all! Even if we have to make our pages look like peas in a pod, all the same in format, then we'll have to do it!—So that you'll be able to fold it up, pictures on it, the works! I used to do that with some of my old prayer letters!

13. I TRIED TO SIMPLIFY IT BEFORE & YOU KNOW WHAT I WROTE & THE SPECIFICATIONS WE'VE SENT YOU, BUT YOU'RE NOT ADHERING TO THEM, YOU'RE NOT STICKING TO THEM! You're not typing with good dark heavy type & you're not using good high-contrast pictures‚ & you're not arranging them uniformly. I'm telling you, if we have to have those pages all look the same, we'll do it!—To simplify things & make it easy & simple. We're giving you an exact size to fit your pictures into, & you'll have to worry about folding it yourselves, & if you have to fold the pictures, that's tough! But the best thing, of course‚ is to arrange them in rows so that you can fold them without bending the pictures. Thereby all we have to do is unfold it & slap on the screen & shoot!

14. NOW THAT'S WHAT I WANT TO DO! That was my original intention, & those were my original instructions, & if you didn't get the point, we're going to tell you again for the last time & this is it, or we start throwing them away!—And I mean it! I'm sorry for you, but if you can't obey, then it just doesn't pay! As far as I'm concerned‚ it looks to me like using pictures less than about the size of a fold in a letter & all in a straight row with the folds of the letter-page coming between rows is about the only way to figure it out simply. Then we don't have to worry with sticking them on or peeling them off, shooting them separately & all that blah! We just are not going to do it, & I mean it!

15. TIME IS SHORT, WE'VE GOT TOO MANY OTHER MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO THAN THAT, IF I HAVE TO CANCEL THE WHOLE NEWS MAG & FORGET IT! That's the choice we have! Either we're going to make it so simple & so easy to do that the FN Staff doesn't have to agonise with it every month, or we're going to forget it! I mean it! I'm pretty simple-minded & maybe I don't know all the tricks of photography, but I can sure tell you how to do it so you can stick'm on & fold it up & stick it in an envelope! Then all we have to do is unfold it, slap it on the screen & shoot! OK? All right! That's the way it is & that's the way it's going to be! We just cannot fiddle around with all this photography! It's ridiculous & wastes time & money, precious time that we need for other things‚ as well as labour & nerves & everything else! We just are not going to do it, period, & that's it! That's the word with the bark on it & it's finito! Got it? So from now on, we've warned you, that's it, no more! We'll just throw it away if it doesn't meet those specifications.

16. IF THE FAMILY GIVES US THE RIGHT KIND OF COPY, WE'RE NOT GOING TO HAVE TO HAVE ANY FINICKY FANCY HIGH-PRICED FILM to try to increase the definition, resolution & all the rest of that stuff! We can just get normal standard film that will shoot normal copy. So we just lay down your sheet, slap on a piece of screen over the pictures & shoot it positive! Bing bing bang bang & they're done & they wrap it up & that's it! You got the point? Well, that's what we're going to do, & if we can't do that, then we're going to abandon the whole project of the News Mag! I mean it!

17. I'M SORRY TO HAVE TO SPEAK RATHER BRUSQUELY‚ BUT I'M FED UP WITH THIS BUSINESS! I have fussed about this before, I have been fussing about it for several years‚ in fact. But I am finally fed-up, & I'll give that FN Story article credit for bringing it to a head, finally revealing the fact that it still was not being simplified!

18. I DON'T KNOW WHO HAS TIME TO READ ALL THAT STUFF ANYHOW! We're publishing more than you've got time to read! Those News Mags are a one-time thing that you only read once & put it away or throw it away! And certainly when you move you leave it behind, because you couldn't possibly carry all that dead weight with you! It's ancient history by that time, it's past history, that's all it is! The Specials we can spend a little more time on & a little more finesse & try to make it good, because it's going to be a reference work that we're going to be constantly referring to & studying & reading over & over again, & with that I would want to see to it that we have a good copy that we're not ashamed of that can stay & stick & be a standard reference work that will last.

19. BUT ON THIS NEWS MAGAZINE IT'S A ONE-TIME THING LIKE A NEWSPAPER! And what do you do with a newspaper? How many people read a newspaper over several times? Well, maybe some people who can't understand it the first time might do it, but I sure don't! Well, I'm probably one of the few that do‚ at least I read some of the articles over again because I have to edit them & reduce them to the right size & figure out the length & breadth & all the rest for the WNs, & when I've chosen something I think we ought to use, then I have to figure out how to cut it down & use it.

20. I'M REAL CHOOSY ABOUT WHAT I PUT IN THE GNS & I LIKE TO TRY TO CUT THE WNs DOWN TO JUST LITTLE ONE-PAGERS IF I CAN! And I think you'll find out there's been a little improvement in brevity. Very few of them run over one page & mostly just what I think is important stuff. I figure you've got time to at least read one page, especially when it's in print big enough to read, not that microscopic stuff of shooting down four or five columns even to Mag size, to where you can hardly read it! Well, they've been doing pretty good on it considering what they have to work with, but I'm trying to improve all the time!—Make it shorter, simpler‚ easier to read & only what I think is most important. Well, at least I'm trying.

21. MAYBE INSTEAD OF GOING TO ALL THE TROUBLE OF ASKING YOU TO RE–SEND & RE-DO, which would take months, if we find a story that's really worthwhile & our dear editor who's in charge of the Mag specifies that regardless of how bad the print is & the pictures, it's gotta go, then maybe we can spend a little time on that one, or shoot it separately or something like that. But that's going to be the rare exception!—Not half of them, not a third of them, not a fourth of them, not even 10% of them!—Maybe one or two out of a hundred! I mean it! I don't want to hear of that staff spending that much time on one page again, ever! Period! From now on! Right now!

22 WE DON'T HAVE TO GET A POOR SLOPPY ORIGINAL COPY OUT ONCE A MONTH, WE DON'T EVER HAVE TO GET IT OUT, WE CAN THROW IT AWAY! Now I'm going to be tough about that & I mean it! I don't want to hear of us wasting that much time on things like that, we've got too many other jobs for them to do! I want to hear that we have streamlined that thing & cut the corners & boiled it down & simplified it so that they can just go bang bang bang bang bang!—Get themselves a repeater camera & see how quick they can change plates or whatever! Make a standard–size format that you can do your own cut-&-paste & stick-&-fold, & all we'll have to do is open it up & maybe just slap on a standard size piece of screen. Why play paper dolls with screen & have all different size formats of photos?—Because unless we can figure out something that's simple & standard & uniform, we may just have to abandon the whole thing!

23. NOW IF YOU CAN'T SEND US COPY LIKE WE TELL YOU TO SEND US‚ YOU DON'T DESERVE TO HAVE IT PUBLISHED! And if nobody can do it, then we'll just quit pubbin' it! I'm sure glad you agree, because that's the way it's going to be! It's wonderful when we can be in agreement like that. I go my way & you go my way!—Ha! Well, I'm just fed-up with fiddling with that stuff. I mean, you're getting Worldwide publicity for virtually nothing, the least you can do is furnish us with decent copy, & if you can't do that, then you don't deserve it! I mean it! Period! Now how many times do we have to tell you? My God, we have put that notice in time & time again, haven't we? All right, well this is the last time!

24. SINCE YOU HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO LIVE UP TO THOSE STANDARDS & SPECIFICATIONS & DO YOUR FORMATS PROPERLY, we're going to have a set format with rows of pictures identical in such a way that you can stick'm on & go ahead & fold'm up. That's what I used to do with mine! I had 'm all stuck on before I ever took'm down to the printers. He fussed at me the first few times when I had'm scattered around, & from then on, believe you me, I stuck'm all in one place! I'll never forget it, he said, "If I've got to cut paper dolls & stick these paper dolls on your photos all over the place, I'm going to charge you twice as much money! But if you can put them all in one place so I only have to slap one piece of screen over the whole bunch of photos, then you're going to save money & I'm going to save time!" I never forgot that!—And I don't see why you can't do it! We're going to say the same thing & tell you the same thing‚ & that's going to be it!

25. I WOULD SUGGEST SINCE THE NORMAL SIZE PAPER THAT YOU USE IS STRICTLY THE 8 x 11 INCH OR CLOSE TO THAT, normal typewriter paper, normally if you use a business-size envelope, which of course you should‚ you only have to fold it twice, in three thirds & you've only got two folds! You've got to have your photos confined to each of those spaces & off of the folds. You can either have one row of pictures or two rows of pictures or three rows of pictures on a sheet, & give a little room between them so you can fold them. That's the only variation we can have. Then all the Photo Department has got to have is three different sizes of screen. Every time they open one it's either got one, two or three rows of pictures, & if it's got less than a row, well fine, they can have some smaller size screens or whatever. But that's it.

26. WE'RE NOT PUTTING OUT A FANCY ALL-COLOUR SLICK PUBLICATION, YOU CAN BE THANKFUL WE PUB THIS STUFF AT ALL! My Lord, I don't know anybody who puts out as many pubs as we do in our kind of an organisation! I sometimes think we're almost crazy trying to publish so much! Well, there are a few pubs we can do without if we have to, but I don't like to do without that one because that's the one little pub that you've got a real part in & it's your voice & you can feel like you're noticed & recognised, & you need the publicity & you need the attention & you need to be noticed & the folks need to know about you & pray for you! So I would like to continue it. But if we can't boil it down & simplify it so that it's going to be so simple that doing the job is almost going to be like rolling off a log compared to what they've been doing, we're just not going to do it, that's all! OK?

27. AS FAR AS I CAN SEE, THAT'S THE ONLY WAY WE CAN DO IT! You're going to have to do'm in rows & keep within those rows, whether you have only one picture or ten pictures!—One row or half a row or three rows! That ought to be the way we can do it! You can either use one picture & all the rest text, such as one picture that's only part of the first row if you want to, but it's gotta be within that row so you can fold the letter sheet. It can't be any bigger than that. And I think that's as big as it needs to be! We just can't use any more great big enlargements that won't fold!

28. THIS IS THE WAY IT'S GOTTA BE FROM NOW ON, & THAT'S IT! No more of this playing around with paper dolls & cut-&-paste & all the rest! And it's going to be a one–shot thing ! The FN Staff are doing a terrific job. It just amazes me how much they can do, considering all the junk they've had to wade through, & we're just not going to do it any more, that's all! We're going to simplify that copy & make it is so easy almost any little child could do it! And it's going to be almost simple enough the FNers can get one of their little kids to press the bulb or something!—Maybe hold the copy in place while they shoot!—Ha!

29. WELL ANYWAY, I'M JUST TRYING TO SAY WE'VE GOTTA MAKE IT SIMPLE! We've gotta make it easy & fast & cheap! The FN will only have a six-step operation: Just unfold the letter, stick it on, slap the screen on, shoot it, develop it & send it off! Good? I don't want that business of shooting over & over again trying to get it perfect. If it doesn't come out right the first time, throw it away! I mean it! That's it! We've just got to cut this job down or cut it in two or cut it out!—Either that or chop it up & throw it away!

30. SO IF YOU WANT TO SAVE YOUR NEWS MAG, YOU'D BETTER COMPLY WITH THIS REAL SIMPLE QUICK EASY FAST CHEAP WAY TO DO IT! I mean it! Things are getting a little tighter & more difficult everywhere, & it's a miracle we've been able to do as much as we have. And I just don't believe we have got time or money & strength & nerves to waste on going to so much trouble to do things so perfect! We're not going to be able to meet perfectionist standards or pub it at all unless we can do it this way.

31. I'M NOT FUSSING AT ALL OF YOU, I'M FUSSING AT THE ONES THAT ARE SO SLOPPY & LAZY THAT THEY DON'T MAKE THINGS THE WAY WE TELL'M TO MAKE'M! And of course maybe it's partly our fault because we haven't made it simple enough & easy enough. But once we get a standard set format, I don't care if they look like peas in a pod & every page looks the same, at least it's there & it's readable & viewable & it's pubbed & you get the benefit of it. So that's just the way we're going to have to do it from now on.

32. THAT FN PHOTOGRAPHER'S STORY WAS REALLY INTERESTING & WE REALLY ENJOYED IT & IT WAS FUN & FUNNY & IT CERTAINLY HELPED ME SEE WHERE THE PROBLEMS ARE & THAT WE NEED TO REVOLUTE! That's what they get for doing such a good job!—They sold me! I sometimes have to jump in with both feet in order to convince everybody that we have to make some changes‚ but it usually works out, & I think this is going to work! From now on, that's it! You stick the pictures on in such form that they don't bend & you can just fold'm up & send it to us, then we lay it out‚ screen it‚ shoot it & mail it & that's it! Doesn't that kind of make the job a little easier? OK! ILY! GBY all!—Tx!—And God help you to do it right!—In Jesus' name, amen.

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family